HOW SMOKING POT GOT ME UNINVITED TO THE HOMECOMING DANCE

Gentle Readers . . . and Maxwell,

My children did not indulge in a great deal of drinking and drugging when they were in high school. There was the time Favorite Young Man came home from "camping at the lake" and barfed up everything including his toenails and then passed out, and I'm sure that wasn't the only time he was inebriated. But then he got into being straight edge. What a loser. Hahahahahaha. I love him.

I feel quite certain that Someone I Love didn't learn to enjoy pot and drinking until she went to college because her fancy-schmancy high school had a zero tolerance policy and there was no way the valedictorian was going to risk getting kicked out. And her school really did send kids home the minute they got caught. Those critters were whisked away so fast they didn't even get to say goodbye to their friends.

Of course, she smoked plenty of weed and did her share of drinking in college to make up for lost time. I know because she told me lots of stories about it and I laughed my ass off at her shenanigans.

However, when she called after her first few days at college, she said, The entire North campus smells like pot. I asked, How do you know what pot smells like? She said, Well, you're the one who took me to a Beck concert.

So she wasn't totally naive, thanks to Mommy.

Not too long ago I wrote a post about walking at my neighborhood park with Franklin and encountering some nice kids who were smoking a doobie, but they didn't offer to share.

One tale always leads to another so I was thinking about the time I got uninvited to the Homecoming dance because I smoked pot.

When I was a sophomore in high school, I had a little crush for a while on this guy named G. He was pretty good looking and intelligent and was rapidly killing his brain cells with all the pot he smoked. The next year when I was a junior, and he was a senior, he suddenly returned my interest, which I had lost but regained when he gave me this look that I now know didn't mean Oh wow, you are so hot and so intelligent. It meant: Do I have a chance of getting laid?

And no, he didn't.

So we were at a party and G. asked if I wanted to go with him to get some beer, so I said sure. I wonder if he was 18. I know I was too young to buy it, although I did all the time. Then when we returned to the party, before I could get out of the car, he leaned over and kissed me. Imagine the little girlish squeal that was going off inside my brain because this cool senior kissed me.

Instead of going back into the party, we stayed outside by the front door, making out, so everyone entering or leaving kinda got the feeling we were together. G. drove me home from the party and on the way he asked if I would go to the Homecoming dance with him. It was coming up in about three or four weeks. I said, Aieeeeeeeee! YES YES YES I WILL GO WITH YOU. Actually that was internal monologue because I just said something intelligent like O.K.

So all of a sudden G. and I were a couple. He came over to my house to make out and we walked around school with our arms around each other. I don't remember why I was dressed in what kind of looks like an army uniform in this photo of us, but girls will be girls.

Then G. and I went to another party. We were playing pool and I really didn't know how, so every time G. turned around to talk to somebody this guy named J.T. would help me get the ball in the pocket.

We finished our game and I sat down at a table to drink a beer. I was sitting next to T., who now went to college and was on my favorites list. Oi! Such blue eyes he had and he wore nice shirts with his initials embroidered on them and he didn't wear a watch. He had a pocket watch. He was sooooo cool.

So I was sitting there talking to T. and all of a sudden I realized G. had disappeared. Where's G? Nobody knew. Some of his friends were gone too. So T. said to me, You wanna go smoke a joint with D. and me?

I said, Sure.

So we walked to a nearby park and smoked a joint.

We got back and G. was there and he looked kinda pissed. What could be wrong?

He said he was ready to leave so we got in the car and drove to my house and on the way he said something I don't exactly remember, but the gist of it was that he uninvited me to the Homecoming dance. Again, I said O.K.

And that was the end of us. Apparently he didn't like it that when he went off to smoke a joint, which was what he was doing, I went off to smoke a joint.

Ah, the never ending double standard.

I guess if I hadn't gone to pot, maybe I would have married G., and I probably would have gotten divorced a lot sooner because he turned into a rabid Republican. I certainly couldn't have tolerated that.

Anyway, G., in the words of the great Lesley Gore: You don't own me. Don't say I can't go with other boys . . . to smoke dope.

Infinities of love,

Lola

P.S. I'm convinced G. turned into a Republican because of pot-induced brain cell loss.

HIGH SCHOOL HIJINKS

Gentle Readers, hahahahaha, I'm laughing hahahaha because I remembered something a few friends and I did in high school.

A close friend of mine (we were sophomores) was giving a party.

My friend, we'll call her Chlamydia, prepared lots of good food and spent hours primping and cleaning the house. A lot of people, mostly juniors and seniors, arrived and stayed for about an hour. Then suddenly they decided they had something better to do, and they departed, saying they would be back later. Two less popular (but nice and fun) boys who were juniors were left behind with us.

I still don't know where all the "cool" people went, but they very foolishly left together in one car.

Are you following me here? All their other cars were parked in front of Chlamydia's house. We four were pretty pissed that they all took off and didn't invite us or say what they were doing, so we moved their cars. This was back when most people didn't lock their cars, and sure enough, we were able to simply open the car doors.

I knew how to drive, so I steered while the other three pushed the cars to different locations. They were still in the neighborhood, but they weren't where the cool people had left them. Then voila! We discovered one cool guy kept the key to his truck in the truck. I believe we moved the truck a few streets away and Chlamydia, whose party had been pretty much screwed over, kept the key.

After 90 minutes or so, the cool people returned: Where are our cars?

We don't know what you're talking about, we replied ever so innocently.

Eventually, we revealed where the cars were, but we let the cool guy whose key was "missing" suffer for three, maybe even four days.

Mwahahahahahahahahahaha            

Don't screw with Lola or Lola's friends.

Infinities of love,

Lola

OSAMA BIN LADEN

Gentle Readers,

I rejoice at the death of no man, but I'm not so sure Osama Bin Laden was a man. I think he was a demon.

Love,

Lola

THE PERP WALK

Gentle Readers,

I've never actually had to perform the perp walk, but I thought it made for a more interesting post title than THE DEPRESSION WALK.

I've been doing the depression walk on and off since I got fired. It consists of barely moving my feet while my head hangs forward and my shoulders droop. Thank God I live in such a small house now. When I did the depression walk in my big house, sometimes I'd have to stop and just lie down on the floor because making it from one room to the next was too much.

As you may have guessed, I've had no luck finding another job. It took me 18 months to get the last one. I was teaching. At a failing school. And by that, I mean their grade from the state was a big fat F.

I kinda doubt I'll get another teaching job. I think I've been blackballed because I was a whistle blower, but I don't know what difference my whistle blowing made because nobody did anything about it. I guess the problem is that now I'm a known whistle blower and so oh Dear God I might do it again.

I think all states now have standardized tests students have to take as a way of judging the school. And the schools have to be judged because of No Child Left Behind. I certainly don't want children left behind, but oy vey, what I saw at that school. Those children were already so far behind I don't know how they could ever recover.

It's really a shame that so much money is spent on the tests and practice tests and materials to prepare for the tests instead of putting the money to work for the kids. Smaller class sizes and more individualized instruction seem like a couple of good ideas to me.

But anyhoo, back to the whistle blowing. The afternoon that I started working with my students, they had taken the state writing test that morning. Some of them told me that the teacher who gave them the test wrote all or part of their essays for them. They wouldn't tell me who the teacher was. One said, I ain't no snitch.

So at the end of the school day, of course I reported what the students had told me. The folks to whom I reported wanted names. I promised to investigate. I think it was my downfall. I know those kids would have talked. They would have told me more as soon as they got to know me.

So, man, I was out the door for no reason in less than a week. You see, here in the hinterlands, teachers can be fired for no reason during the first three months of employment.

I think the administration didn't want to know who cheated. I've read quite a few articles about cheating on the state-mandated tests. They all say it's to the schools' advantage to cheat, and of course it is. They want the money from the state that the school receives for improving. The teachers want the merit pay they get because their students have shown improvement.

They want higher scores.

Especially if the school's grade is F.

I reported all this to the teachers' union and to the appropriate people at the schools' central office. I even fired off a letter to the Superintendent of Schools.

Guess what?

Nobody cares. There was no investigation. No one asked me a single question.

The only response I received was an angry email from the principal who fired me telling me if I wanted to talk about the school I should contact him. Why in the hell would I get in touch with the guy who fired me? We're not exactly on a send each other Christmas cards basis.

The saddest thing about all this is not that I lost my job, although it brings out the depression walk in me.

The saddest thing is that taking the test for the student is tantamount to saying, You're not good enough. You can't do it, and rather than let you do what you are capable of, I will teach you to be helpless.

We should all be doing the depression walk over that.

Infinities of love,

Lola

SAYS ME STREET

Gentle Readers,

I do not like the much-revered and honored PBS staple Sesame Street. My children did not like it when they were young and didn't watch it for long. It had a scene with Bert and Ernie that frightened them, and it was not because they figured out that Bert and Ernie are sometimes accused of being gay. Saying Bert and Ernie are gay is just plain dumber than shit.

I don't like the show because it's too manic. The idea of teaching numbers or letters by presenting them as if they are commercials has given children the attention spans of gnats, and don't try telling me that children have always had the attention spans of gnats. When I was growing up in the dark ages almost all of us sat quietly in school all day and listened when the teacher spoke and did our work.

We wouldn't have dreamed of getting out of our seats to wander around the room, wouldn't hit anybody, wouldn't talk back to the teacher -- and we didn't have that damn Sesame Street.

The trouble with so many children begins before they hit the public schools. They are parked in front of televisions to watch crap all day long and as soon as they can hit the keys with their thumbs they're parked in front of televisions or computers or game boys or cell phones playing stupid video games.

By the time they hit school the little darlings are ruined.

Damn it all to hell.

Lola

SELF-ESTEEM

Gentle Readers,

Are the schools depleting many children's already meager supply of self-esteem by telling them they don't have it?

Oh crap, the teacher told everybody that I got an F on the math homework, I don't have any friends, and now I've failed the self-esteem test.

I don't remember ever hearing the term self-esteem when I was growing up. We just felt bad about ourselves without anybody making us feel even worse by telling us that we should feel like shit because we had no self-esteem.

I don't even know if it's a good idea to have such a high opinion of yourself. Of course, I'm a Lutheran and we believe in guilt. We're always ashamed.

One of my kids once brought home a self-esteem work sheet that showed she had no self-esteem. Said child was supposed to check off things like "I feel good about myself because I help wash the dishes." Said child said, How can I say I feel good about myself for that? We don't wash the dishes. We have a dishwasher.

Schools: Cut out the self-esteem crap and teach the kids to read and they can just naturally develop some self-esteem by not being idiots. Thank you very much.

Infinities of love,

Lola

LAWYERS AND PC REPAIR PEOPLE

When I got my computer back from the repair place yesterday, the guy who fixed it showed me where my documents are.

BUT HE DIDN'T BOTHER TO TELL ME I WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO OPEN THEM because my Microsoft Office is gone.

My husband sent me a nasty email this morning saying that if I don't cooperate and send in my Affidavit of Income and Expenses that the judge will order my house be sold.

Today I filled out my fourth Affidavit of Income and Expenses.

The first one went to my original lawyer, who claimed it never arrived.

I filled out another one.

It arrived, but the lawyer couldn't trouble herself with filing it. When I did what my husband told me to do with the lawyer, she got mad and quit.

When will I learn not to listen to that asshole?

When the old lawyer gave my file to the new lawyer I had to hire in another state, over the telephone, guess what? No Affidavit.

I had to call the old lawyer's assistant and ask her to give the Affidavit to the new lawyer. The assistant said, "Oh, we never followed through on that, remember?"

Yes, I remembered, and I did not scream at her. I asked her to give the Affidavit to the new lawyer, which she did.

New lawyer sends me the affidavit and wants it done again, with his questions answered and some corrections made. I do it and call to make sure he receives it.

Yes, Ms. Secretary says, We received it.

This past Saturday, I receive a letter from the lawyer. You never sent us the Affidavit I requested.

Yes I did. Your secretary said it arrived.

It must have been misfiled and so much time has gone by that you really should do another one anyway.

So today I fill out my fourth affidavit while frantically trying to access the financial information that was on the computer in the files that can no longer be opened.

Therefore, I am assigning lawyers and PC repair people to hell. If you are a lawyer or a PC repair person, you need to prove to me PDQ that you do not deserve to go there. Otherwise, I will use my mystical powers on you and yes, you will go straight to HELL.